Japan pledges to increase aid to Indonesia: FM Sato says
JAKARTA (JP): Japan will meet Indonesia's request for more aid this fiscal year, says Shigekazu Sato, director of the loan and aid division of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"I am optimistic that Japan's official aid to Indonesia will increase," he told newsmen here yesterday.
Sato, who ended his three-day official visit yesterday, said the change in his government's leadership and the Japanese public's growing concern over the utilization of his country's official aid would not affect the Japanese loan commitment for Indonesia in the 1994-95 fiscal year.
Sato and his delegation of eight officials, including Tatsuo Watanabe, the director of the International Monetary Finance Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Finance, and Yasuhiro Shibamoto, the assistant director of the Economic Planning Agency, met with Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance Saleh Afiff and top officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) during their Indonesian visit.
He said his delegation and the Indonesian officials exchanged views on the future directions of Japan's official loans to Indonesia and discussed specific projects for the 1994-95 fiscal year.
Projects
"The Indonesian government is making proposals for the financing of 20 development projects," he said.
However, he refused to give the value of the proposed projects or the amount of the aid requested.
"You'd better ask your government," he said.
He added that his government's aid commitment will be announced only during the next meeting of the Consultative Group for Indonesia (CGI), a consortium of creditors comprising the industrialized nations and international financial institutions, in Paris this June.
The consortium, chaired by the World Bank, pledged US$5.11 billion in loans and grants in its meeting in Paris last year. The World Bank pledged $1.6 billion, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) $1.2 billion and Japan $1.44 billion.
The Japanese aid consisted of $1.3 billion in soft loans and $144 million in grant aid and technical assistance.
Sato said that recognizing the close relationship between the two countries and Indonesia's huge needs for development programs, Japan will to continue to provide ODA (official development aid) loans to Indonesia as one of its top priorities.
Japan's cumulative aid commitments to Indonesia, the largest recipient of the ODA loan, have thus far reached 2,468 billion yen ($23.8 billion), he said.
Sato said his government will impose stricter procedures for the future aid to Indonesia in line with the increased concerns of the Japanese public over the usage of the ODA budget.
"The Japanese government will, for example, pay full consideration to transparency and accountability. We also want closer coordination among various aid schemes, in particular between ODA loans and development study programs," he said, adding that aid priorities will cover such areas as human resource development, education, and environment conservation.
"The Japanese side also urges the Indonesian government to further improve efforts for effective and efficient implementation of development projects," he said.
He said the implementation rate of the ODA-financed projects in Indonesia is much higher than that of other loan recipients.
"But the Indonesian government still needs to improve," he added.(hen)